Jailed rapist released early assaults again within weeks

London, June 8 (IANS) A rapist, who was freed before fully serving his prison term, has been held for sexually assaulting another woman within a few weeks of his release, a media report said.

Fabian Thomas, 23, was released last December after serving only four years of an eight-year sentence for rape. He struck again in February, attacking a woman in a supermarket car park, The Telegraph reported Wednesday.

Thomas committed his first offence on New Year’s Day 2006 when he twice raped and threatened to kill a girl, aged 17, in an alley in Taunton, Somerset.

He was sentenced in December 2006 to eight years in a young offenders’ institution.

In December 2010, he was released. But he committed his second attack Feb 20 early this year, when he attempted to rape a 19-year-old in a supermarket car park, threatening his victim with a knife.

A Home Office spokesman said a review would be carried out into how Thomas was managed while on probation.

But women’s groups and politicians here seized on the case Tuesday night as an example of the consequences of letting rapists out of prison early.

The Home Office is now investigating the case.

The case comes just weeks after Kenneth Clarke, the British Justice Secretary, had to apologise following his defence of government proposals to halve prison sentences for rapists who plead guilty early.